Welcome to Cheese School

Craig is our expert cheese technologist with an impressive 42-year career - joining the NZ Dairy Group in 1980 and the NZ Dairy Research Institute in 1991. During his tenure, he has held various positions, including managing the Waitoa Natural Cheese Plant for six years.

With experience in most cheese types and cheese foods applications, Craig has worked on NPD projects in various markets, notably Japan, China, Korea, and the UK. He has also played a significant role in developing new cheese types like TAUPO, Cheddar san, Cheddar J, Superfunctional Cheddar 900, Noble Cheddar, and Reduced Salt Savoury Cheddar. He was extensively involved in the development of new Mozzarella types and the transformational IQF Mozzarella

He has been a judge at the NZ Cheese Awards for many years and has judged at Nantwich in the UK.

Mukta is a highly experienced marketer with over 25 years of experience in FMCG and B2B marketing. She has held both global and local roles in marketing and innovation, specialising in snack foods, paediatric, and dairy categories.

She joined Fonterra in 2009 and has since worked on both Fonterra's global consumer brands and NZMP. As the cheese category marketing manager since 2018, she has been responsible for leading the marketing strategy for Fonterra's cheese category. Her expertise extends to a wide range of markets, including Japan, Korea, China, South East Asia, and the USA, where she has helped drive growth and profitability through her strategic thinking and deep understanding of consumers.

Michael Hii is responsible for the technical servicing that supports NZMP customers’ continued business growth in the region. He is a dairy innovation practitioner with more than 15 years of successful new product development and commercialisation track records in both B2C and B2B. He was part of the Fonterra global R&D team who designed world-leading specialty protein ingredients such as functional MPC and WPC for sports nutrition, healthy ageing and medical nutrition.

Michael is passionate about partnering with customers to innovate dairy product solutions that meet the ever-increasing consumer’s expectations of health benefits, functional performance, taste and affordability. He brings a broad range of experience and expertise, including end-to-end consumer product design, product and process quality trouble-shooting, applications know-how and pipeline/project management.

Karena is a seasoned marketing professional with over 20 years of experience in developing insights to drive strategic decisions regarding brand, product and communications activities in Asia.

Joining Fonterra in 2016, she leads for marketing and brand activation for NZMP S&EA, generating new opportunities that support strategic priorities. She was instrumental in driving NZMP’s strong presence at Food Ingredients Asia and other tradeshows.

In 2019, Karena relocated to New Zealand to lead the development and execution of NZMP's Provenance Program. Spending time with our farmers and cows gave her fresh appreciation of Fonterra’s sustainability efforts and the advantages of New Zealand dairy.

Crystal is responsible for the development and implementation of the regional marketing roadmap for Ingredients in South and South East Asia. She leads customer engagements, manages our digital channels and supports events. She also collaborates with our reseller partners to help them become NZMP Brand Ambassadors in their markets.

In her role she has led innovation workshops, portfolio showcases, webcasts, and tradeshows. She leverages her knowledge of consumer insights and market trends to identify strategic opportunities for customers.

Along with B2B expertise, Crystal also has a strong foundation in brand and social media management. Most recently, she contributed to the launch of a B2C brand in Singapore as part of a cross-functional project team.